Chili Con Carnage (5 page)

“No, but you will soon enough. The cops are sure to talk to you. You’re going to hear plenty of questions then.”

“Is that all that’s bothering you? What I’m going to tell the cops?” I made quick work of that cookie and popped another one into my mouth. “I can’t tell them any more than I already told them. I opened the door of the RV and Roberto—”

“What about the fight you had with Roberto this morning?”

It was no easy thing swallowing a mouthful of cookie, what with my throat suddenly filled with sand. I got up, grabbed a bottle of Coke from the fridge, and took a long gulp.

“You don’t waste any time,” I told Nick, sitting back down and pretending like his sudden interest in my motives—and the fact that he was tapped into the Showdown gossip grapevine—didn’t bother me.

His shrug was almost casual enough to make me believe he really didn’t care. “I talked to some people. That’s all. While you were talking to the cops.”

“And those people . . .”

“Said Roberto stopped by the Palace earlier today. They said the two of you had an argument. Things got physical.”

I choked on the sip of soda I was about to swallow. “I bonked him with the chili costume,” I said, because really, “got physical” was just a stupid cop way of saying the same thing.

“Then you admit it?”

“That I whacked Roberto on the head with the Chili Chick? Heck, yes. He deserved it.”

“Because he . . .”

Honestly, did my love life (or lack of it) have to be the topic of every conversation at the Showdown?

I thought not, and thinking it, I glared at Nick. “Because I didn’t give a crap about him.”

“In my experience, people don’t fight unless they care very much about the other person. That doesn’t mean that caring is about liking the person. Or loving them. Sometimes, they care enough to hate.”

“And we’re getting philosophical now . . . why?”

“It’s my job.”

“Funny, I thought your job was to keep the turnstile jumpers and the shoplifters away from the Showdown.”

Oh yes, that stung. Just like I knew it would. It was precisely why I bothered to mention it. See, from the moment I met him, I knew Nick had a bug up his butt about not being on the job anymore. It was exactly why I thought I’d remind him that acting like a tough cop was going to get him nowhere. Not with me, anyway.

I sat back and kept my mouth shut.

He dropped into the seat across from mine.

“You were angry at Roberto?”

“So what? You think I killed him?”

I spit out a laugh that died in the air between us when Nick said, “Did you?”

I finished drinking the Coke and tossed the bottle in the nearby container Sylvia insisted we keep for recycling. Suddenly, it was all too clear what was going on here. The comforting touch of Nick’s hand . . . the way he’d defended me against Phil’s lecherous advances . . .

I narrowed my eyes and shot him a look. “You didn’t come in here while I was getting undressed so you could make sure Phil the perv didn’t molest me. You came in here so you could find out what was going on before the local cops did. All you wanted was to ask questions.”

“So far, you haven’t answered any of them.”

“So far, you haven’t said anything that makes any sense.”

Nick scraped a hand through his hair. “Look, if I heard the story about you and Roberto going at each other, the local cops are bound to hear it, too.”

“Then I’ll tell them exactly what I’m telling you. I barely knew Roberto. And it didn’t take me long to figure out that barely was as close as I wanted to get. This morning when he came by, he said some things that pissed me off. That’s why I walloped him with the chili. Listen, it’s not like I’ve never hated anyone enough to want to kill them. Sylvia tops the list. And then there’s Edik. Since you apparently know all about me, I’m sure you’ve heard that story. But when it comes to people I’d like to see removed from the face of the Earth, Roberto wasn’t on my radar screen.”

“But you two did have history.”

I threw my hands in the air. It was better than wishing I had the bottle of Coke back so I could throw that at Nick. “History? I went out with the guy once. Does that make it history?”

“It means you had a connection.”

“Not a very interesting one.”

“Maybe Roberto thought that, too. Maybe if he said he didn’t want to see you again—”

“Are you kidding me?” I was on my feet before I knew it, my fists on my hips. “Do you think I’m that hard up?”

Nick got to his feet, too. Slowly. Casually. Like we weren’t here debating how crazy and desperate I would have to be to actually kill a guy who didn’t want to date me again.

A more level-headed woman would have given him time to at least try to explain himself. “While you’re deciding that I killed ol’ Roberto, think about this. I saw Roberto this morning, and it’s now . . .” The clock on the microwave hadn’t worked in years, but automatically I looked that way. “It’s afternoon sometime,” I said. “That means hours have passed since I last saw Roberto. So while you’re using that Sherlock Holmes brain of yours, think about this: A whole lot can happen to a guy in a couple hours. And believe me, whatever that whole lot was, it had nothing to do with me.”

Since I was fuming, it didn’t seem right that Nick looked so completely blasé about the whole thing. He walked to the door. “I’m just telling you that the cops are going to want to talk to you about all this,” he said. “I thought you’d want to take some time and think about what you’re going to tell them. I was just concerned, that’s all. You know, as a friend.”

“Friend.” Since I was standing near the recycling bin, it seemed a waste not to grab the plastic Coke bottle I’d just deposited there. I winged it at Nick and missed by a mile, which is just as well since at that moment the door opened.

“Oh.” Sylvia stood at the bottom of the two steps that led into the RV, her lips parted and her eyes wide. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“I was just leaving,” Nick said, and without another word, he was gone.

“Friend.” The bottle had hit the wall and bounced into the passenger seat, and I retrieved it and shoved it back in the recycling bin. “I don’t need friends like that. Can you believe it?” I stomped back over to the table. “That idiot actually thinks I had a reason to kill Roberto.”

In spite of the fact that there was sun streaming through the side window of the RV, Sylvia’s face was pale.

I collapsed in the nearest chair. “What are you looking so gloomy about?” I asked her. “You were just there minding your own business, and nobody’s going to be asking you any question. At least nobody thinks you had a reason to kill Roberto.”

Sylvia didn’t answer. In fact, all she did was hurry into her bedroom and close the door behind her.

I should have listened. After all, she didn’t say anything.

And there’s a lot you can hear in silence.

There’s an upside to everything. Even getting flattened by a dead guy.

Like the fact that the next day, the cops still had my costume as evidence.

As far as I was concerned, this was the equivalent of an engraved invitation. No costume meant no work. At least in my universe.

Something told me Sylvia did not agree. Not that I stuck around long enough to hear it from her. It was the morning of the first day of the Showdown, and when I zipped past the Palace where Sylvia was setting out jars of spices, she made a face at me.

Old habits die hard. Seeing those sky-blue eyes of hers all squinched up and those petal-pink lips puckered, I called out the taunt we’d used on each other so many times for so many summers. “Your face is going to freeze that way. Then you’ll be sorry!”

I don’t know if she yelled the standard comeback, “Oh yeah, well at least my face isn’t as ugly as yours.” I didn’t wait around to find out.

I had a few hours before the crowds descended, and I intended to make the most of them. First stop, Tumbleweed’s office.

“You’re up bright and early.” Look who was talking! Ruth Ann, Tumbleweed’s wife, was already at her desk inside the trailer that served as the Showdown’s office. Ruth Ann was younger than Tumbleweed by a dozen years or so, a woman with teased, bleached hair, stick-thin arms, and a paunch I knew came courtesy of the six pack she and Tumbleweed tucked into every night when they kicked back and relaxed. Over the years, I’d spent plenty of summers with Tumbleweed and his missus, and it was only natural for Ruth Ann to feel a little motherly. When she talked about me and Sylvia, she always referred to “my girls.” Only never in the plural when Sylvia was within earshot.

I gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I need to talk to Tumbleweed.”

As if she’d been expecting exactly this, Ruth Ann nodded. “Of course you do. About the murder.”

“Murder? Oh, you mean Roberto.” It wasn’t like I’d forgotten. I mean, how could I? A couple times during the night, I’d woken in a cold sweat, and that morning I’d had some trouble getting the Little Debbie Donut Sticks that were my breakfast past what felt like a permanent lump in my throat. Other than that, I thought I’d done a pretty good job of putting the whole thing out of my head. It was done. It was over. I had to move on. In some ways, Roberto was a lot like Edik (though, unfortunately, as far as I knew, Edik was still breathing). Interesting for a while. Ultimately disappointing. So I had a bad experience with a guy! What else was new?

“I don’t want to talk about Roberto,” I told Ruth Ann. “I don’t care about Roberto. The cops are taking care of that. I want to talk to Tumbleweed about Jack.”

Another series of nods from Ruth Ann told me she sympathized, even if she wasn’t sure it was going to get me anywhere. “I’m sure there’s nothing else he can tell you that he hasn’t already told you,” she assured me, and beamed a smile in my direction. “You’re a good girl to care so much.”

“Only if caring helps us find Jack.”

Ruth Ann’s plucked-to-the-width-of-a-strand-of-angel-hair-pasta eyebrows drooped. She made a vague gesture out to the fairgrounds. “Tumbleweed was up early and he’s been out since. There’s plenty for him to do. You know, on account of the murder.”

It was the first I realized that though I was certainly the one who’d had the most striking contact (literally), I wasn’t the only one affected by Roberto’s demise. Of course Tumbleweed was busier than usual. When something like this happens, there must be a thousand details to handle. Something told me that, as Showdown manager and administrator, Tumbleweed was involved in every single one of them.

I offered Ruth Ann my help.

“That’s so sweet, and just like you, Maxie, honey, but we’re fine.” There was a pile of papers on her desk and she shuffled through them. “Tumbleweed’s taking care of the media and Nick’s got a handle on the gawkers. That Nick . . .” She glanced up, no doubt to gauge my reaction. “He’s something, huh?”

Since she didn’t say what her definition of
something
was, I wasn’t obligated to answer. Besides, if I offered my opinion of our security chief, I don’t think she would have liked it. Ever since she’d first mentioned Nick’s name, Ruth Ann’s eyes had been twinkling.

Rather than deal, I turned back to the door.

“You know, sweetie . . .”

Her voice stopped me cold, and when I spun back around, I saw that Ruth Ann’s cheeks were shot through with color. Even though she’d already done it once, she shuffled through the papers on her desk again. “The first day of the Showdown is always so busy, and that’s more true than ever today, what with all the excitement yesterday and all the news coverage and all the folks who are sure to come out to see the scene of the crime. You’d probably just be better off staying at the Palace where you’re needed. You know, instead of heading off to find Tumbleweed, asking a lot of questions.”

“You mean Tumbleweed is busy, and I shouldn’t bother him.”

“You? Bother?” She rose to her feet. Ruth Ann was dressed in lime-green capris and a sherbet-orange short-sleeved top. Her flip-flops were hot pink. Just like her lipstick. “Honey, you could never be a bother. It’s just that . . .”

It wasn’t what she said that sent a cold chill up my back, it was the way she refused to meet my eyes. I stepped toward her. “It’s just that, what?”

I wasn’t really worried until Ruth Ann’s eyes filled with tears. She rubbed a finger under her nose and crossed the trailer to pluck a tissue from a box on a gunmetal-gray credenza. “You know how people are.” Ruth Ann sniffled. “They talk. Even when they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s no different with Showdown people than it is with anyone else.”

Call me slow, but then, no one had ever accused me of being fast.

Except maybe for Roberto, who had wanted me to go out with him again simply because he figured I’d be easy to get into bed.

“Wait a minute!” My temper hit the ceiling along with my voice. “Are you telling me people think I had something to do with—”

“Now, now.” She scooted over and took my hand. “Just because people say it doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“You bet it’s not true! Ruth Ann, you don’t think—”

“Of course I don’t, honey. But people will talk. And you and Roberto, you did have history.”

There was that word again! I screeched my opinion of it. “One date is history? Good thing I turned him down when he asked me out again. The folks around here would be planning my lynching.”

“It’s not like that.” Brave words, if only her expression wasn’t so miserable. “They just know you and Roberto had a fight and—”

“Does anybody have any secrets around here?” Since I already knew the answer, it was a stupid question. “Perfect! Good! Fabulous!” I stomped to the door. “If everybody’s so in tune with what’s happening in everybody else’s lives, that suits me just fine. That means maybe somebody can tell me what happened to Jack!”

I would apologize to Ruth Ann for the outburst later. Just like I always did. For now, slamming the door behind me and stomping down the trailer steps and out into the fairgrounds felt too good.

Having people whisper about me when I walked by, not so much.

It happened at Nardo’s Sauce Stand and at Bill’s Fresh Bison Meat Market, and I even heard the now-too-familiar mumblings when I zipped past the booth where the judges would check in later in the day and where local volunteers were now setting up—all of them female—whose charity would benefit from the proceeds of the Showdown.

“There she is,” a woman said, only I couldn’t tell which woman, because when I stopped and glared that way, every single one of them pretended they were busy doing something else.

“They say she knows more than she’s telling,” another woman replied just as I got moving again. “The cops are talking to her.”

“From what I heard, it’s no wonder. She’s got quite a reputation. You know, when it comes to men.”

I kept walking, my chin high and my teeth clenched.

“I hope you’re not listening to that nonsense.” This, too, was a woman’s voice, but one I recognized. I turned just in time to see that I was in front of Gert Wilson’s stand. Gert had been selling her aprons, pot holders, kitchen towels, and other accessories on the circuit for the last five years. We didn’t know each other well, but apparently she knew I was in need of the friendly smile she sent my way.

Like the grumblings I’d heard were nothing, I shrugged and closed in on her spacious retail area. Unlike a lot of us who sold out of the trailers we hauled behind our RVs, Gert had a freestanding booth under a spacious pop-up tent. Her wide aisles and attractive displays allowed buyers the chance to browse so they could better check out crockery, candles, and other household goods, all decorated with chili peppers, Southwestern themes, or sayings like
Don’t Mess with Texas
. She was a smart businesswoman, and from what I’d heard about her, that came as no surprise. Gert had an MBA and was once a corporate big shot. A vicious downsizing and a midlife crisis produced the perfect storm, and she’d up and sold her tony condo in Atlanta and done what she’d always dreamed of doing—she became an entrepreneur. At the same time, she unleashed her inner free spirit and hit the road with the Showdown.

I was glad. What I’d seen of Gert, I liked. She had a wide, pleasant face, hair the color of a New Mexico sunset, and ample hips. That day, she was wearing an ankle-length denim skirt and a yellow scoop-necked top along with a handwoven scarf in shades of turquoise, red, and purple and about a dozen colorful beaded bracelets on her left wrist.

“Don’t listen to them.” Gert didn’t have to tell me who she was talking about. She sent a death-ray look toward the volunteers in the next tent. “Gossipers. And idiots.”

“What, you mean you don’t think I killed Roberto?”

The fact that she didn’t bother to answer told me she didn’t think the question was worth it. Gert waved me under the tent and back toward where she had a table set up and an electric teakettle about to boil. Without asking, she poured a cup of tea for herself and one for me, then patted one of the two red director’s chairs near the table. Once we were seated, she folded her hands in her lap.

“I think,” she said, “that there are people who need killing. But Roberto wasn’t one of them. Not as far as you’re concerned, anyway. In my experience, there’s always someone out there who hates someone else enough to kill that person. And Roberto . . .” She pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. “Well, I’m pretty sure you didn’t care about him one bit. After all, I heard he just started with the Showdown. None of us could have possibly known him well enough to hate him, right? My guess is ignoring him was more your style than stabbing him through the heart.”

“Exactly.” She handed me a mug that featured a picture of Michelangelo’s
David
wearing a red chili pepper where his fig leaf should have been. Her own mug had a bright-green jalepeño on it along with the words
Hot Stuff!

I cupped my mug in my hands, took a deep breath of the steam that rose from it—and nearly choked. “What the hell!” I looked into the murky amber depths. “It smells like a barn.”

“It’s my own combination of herbs, all of them proven to relieve stress. I always have a cup before the cook-off opens. A little honey . . .” She pointed to a small ceramic jar that looked like a beehive. “. . . and you’ll be fine.”

I added the honey. I took a sip.
Fine
was not the word I would have used. To be polite, I held on to my mug while Gert sipped away at hers.

Finally, she looked at me through the tendrils of steam that rose off her cup. “So, what you are going to do?”

“About Roberto?”

“Of course not. The cops will take care of Roberto, won’t they? No, what I mean is what are you going to do? About Jack?”

I was so grateful to have found a kindred spirit, I took another sip of tea, just to show how much I appreciated her support. I hoped she didn’t notice the face I made when I gulped it down.

“Jack. That’s exactly why I’m here,” I told her. “I wanted to talk to some of the Showdown people. To find out what they know.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’ve done that already.”

She hadn’t been one of them. Six weeks earlier when I’d arrived in Abilene, Gert was in Arizona with an elderly, sick relative. She’d just rejoined the Showdown here in Taos. “Sometimes people remember things. You know, sort of after the fact. If I keep asking questions, maybe I’ll get the right answers.”

“Or maybe you’ll stumble on the right questions.”

I wasn’t sure I understood the difference, but I did know an opportunity when I saw one. I set down my mug, partly so I didn’t have to finish the tea and partly so I could lean forward when I said, “What can you tell me, Gert? How well do you know Jack?”

Gert was wearing long, chili pepper earrings, enameled bright red. When she shook her head, they swung against her neck. “I know I wasn’t his type,” she said.

Which was so not what we were talking about, I didn’t catch on for a moment. When I did, I grinned. “You wish you were.”

She thought about it. “Maybe. Maybe not. Your father is an attractive man. There’s no doubt about that. Oh, I was interested enough when I first met him. But you’ve got to admit, he has something of a reputation.”